What is ISAAC?

ISAAC (Internet System for Assessing Autistic
Children) is a web-based application for administering and managing
health research projects/studies and the associated data. ISAAC's
easy to use layout allows study personnel a fast, easy and secure
method for entering and validating (double data enter) study information
and exporting to your favorite database application or
analysis tool.

ISAAC uses a proprietary form management system, called DEFE (Database
of Electronic Form Elements), which simplifies the process of
developing data entry, data validation, and data edit forms/templates.
Adding new templates and modifying existing templates is a data
entry process. No programming is required. ISAAC controls
version management, so during the course of a study, when paper
collection forms change, it is simple to keep data entry screens
synchronized.

What benefits does ISAAC provide to researchers?

Web-based - Project data, data entry screens, and all
other ISAAC features and functionality available 24x7, any where
in the world.

Secure - ISAAC access requires a username and password
and all communication between you and the ISAAC servers uses 128-bit
SSL encryption, the highest available.

Catalogue of Forms and Questions - ISAAC has a growing
list of standard (ADIR, ADOS, CARS, etc) and study specific forms/templates
and questions. Your project can use forms/templates as they exist,
create your own from our database of questions, or work with the
ISAAC team to add new questions and forms.

Create a Summary File - A user defined file that can
merge fields from multiple forms into a single file. Principal
Investigators can create and modify the Summary file only. Changes
are available real-time.

Many others

Why would a researcher want to use ISAAC?

To Ensure Data Accuracy - ISAAC both verifies and validates
data as it saves it. When entering data, ISAAC verifies that the
values entered meet the criteria of the question. This could be
in the form of a list of possible values, a numeric range, or
a specific data type. When validating data (double data entry),
entered values are compared to previously entered values for the
same question. Any errors that the system encounters are immediatly
displayed for correction.

To Better Allocate Resources - Because research budgets
have little room for waste, data management is often relegated
to staff with little or no technical training or experience. ISAAC
frees these valuable team members to better use their skills in
study design, data analysis, or other.

To Manage Multi-Site Studies - ISAAC eliminates much
of the headaches associated with managing data collected at multiple
sites. As a web-based system, all data entry templates and study
management tools are available to all sites, all of the time.
While site specific users, patients, and forms/templates can be
maintained, data common to all is aggragated real-time. PIs, Project
Managers, and Data Managers can get real-time counts on data entered
on all of the study's forms, broken down by site.

To Maintain Historical Data Integrity - ISAAC tightly
links data to the original form from which it was gathered. Therefore,
when returning to data from completed studies, there is never
a question of what a column of data or even a particular value
means. The Code Book (Data Dictionary) completely and accurately
describes the data as long as it is maintained in ISAAC.

To Collaborate with Other Researchers - ISAAC was conceived
as a method to allow researchers to easily and safely allow others
to access their data. The system includes features which make
sharing of data simple, yet leave it fully in control of the study's
staff.

* Response given by a group of leading Autism
researchers attending a recent database conference when asked
for their overal impressions of ISAAC.